In 2010 we went through the single largest redesign in AnandTech history. We modernized the site, finally moved to a tag based architecture and made a number of other tweaks. The web moves a lot quicker than it did even just 3 years ago, so last year we started working on another significant redesign. Today marks the debut of that design.

Going into the redesign we wanted to accomplish three major goals. First, we wanted to have a design that put our smartphone and tablet coverage on equal footing with our traditional PC roots. The redesign consolidates our coverage areas into four major categories: PC Components, Smartphones & Tablets, Desktops & Notebooks and finally Enterprise. The super categories are largely self explanatory and you can drill down into each one of them for more specific navigation.

It's important that our site design reflects our internal focuses. We are as committed as ever to our PC component coverage, but we also devote an equal amount of time to what we're doing in the new mobile space. From my perspective, whether it's a smartphone or a server, we're still talking about some form of computer - just in a different case.

Our second major goal with the redesign was to more prominently feature Pipeline, our short form content section. We launched Pipeline in late 2011 as a way of dealing with content that either didn't demand our full review treatment or that we didn't have time to dedicate deep analysis to. Since then Pipeline has become a very important part of the site, and we wanted to elevate its position on the front page as a result. Pipeline stories on the right are ordered from newest to oldest, with even older pipeline stories appearing under the 2x2 grid of featured articles.

Finally, we wanted a design that would be more accessible and speak to the broader nature of our audience. While you all know why you come to AnandTech, it's very important to our continued success and ability to remain independent that the site accurately reflects the diverse audience. Whether you're coming to us for motherboard reviews, analysis of the latest microprocessor architectures or to figure out which smartphone or tablet to buy, you're likely a person relied on by dozens of others for recommendations. We remain an independent website, which comes with its own challenges when it comes to proving our worth to the agencies and marketing organizations that help keep us operational. Looking the part is just as important as having the content to back it up.

We made sure not to take away any features with the redesign. We still include our well used Print View on all articles, but now allow you to use it both for single page reading as well as for actual printing. The previous Print View didn't have all of the styling of our article pages since it was purely optimized for printing, now we have both modes.

Other features have been enhanced as well. The View All Comments button now actually lets you view all comments on a single page, rather than just showing you 50 comments per page. You can also now permalink to individual comments. I'm always humbled by just how awesome your comments are, now we can finally link directly to individual ones.

We now support larger images inline (we will be adding site-wide retina/hi-DPI support soon!) and our graph style has been updated as well, which you'll start seeing us take advantage of with all new content going forward. The review body text is also larger and hopefully easier to read, which should help when we post some of our ultra long form content.

The Podcast now has a permanent link at the top of the page as well - thanks to all you who have been asking for that.

The Twitter feed on the front page now includes tweets from a number of staff members including Brian, Ganesh, Jarred and myself. We've also made it easier to follow us on Twitter and Facebook with direct links in our header (hint: it helps us tremendously if you do). Our most recommended content on Facebook is also nicely streamed in to the right of the site as well.

There are more functional changes that we'll be introducing throughout the new year. We just had to get the redesign out of the way first so we could start building on it.

I hope you all enjoy the site redesign. I know big changes aren't always easy to get used to, and as always you have my commitment to fix/improve anything that truly needs it. I'd love to hear your feedback on the design in the comments below.

I'd like to close with a thanks to all of you for continuing to read and support the site. I've always said that AnandTech is your site and I do firmly believe that. We are here to serve you and you are what make this site possible. Thank you for reading, and thanks for making the past 16 years possible. If you are a relative newcomer, please be sure to check out our About page that helps explain the philosophies that drive us.

The comment background colour definitely. The contrast between the text and background is way too steep. Many sites have noticed this and stopped using #000 for text already, and using a light gray background would definitely help that more.

This is a problem I notice on many other sites with #fff background (e.g. NYT). While vFunct has pointed out some sites below that look brilliant with white background, it is notable that none of them are text-heavy. Clicking into the articles shows me the same readability issues with too much contrast.

The dark gray margin definitely helps too. It is kind of ironic that one consequence of the sharper, brighter displays we are getting these days is lower readability on sites that used to pose no such problem.Reply

Text contrast depends on screen quality. The contrast may be too high on a retina display, but it certainly is never enough on a most common laptop or even on a better quality monitor with an older 96 DPI panel. If the contrast is too high, I recommend turning the brightness down, when not gaming.Reply

Those all look good. I don't have a problem with the white backdrop, but an inverse (black or grey) as an option would be nice.

The grey option seems to make you eyes focus to the center of the page, where the white makes it look like there's space that needs to be filled with something. Engadget does the white background, and it takes a while to get use to, its okay, but it appears (at least to me) that a darker than while gradient like arstechnica or techreport appear better.Reply

Personally I find that going with a Light Grey or Grey as main color makes it far less glaring.

That said I also agree with the comments regarding the text fields in the comment section needing better separation. Right now it feels a bit wall-of-text-ish.

As for the redesign in general I'll refrain from giving a final opinion until I've had more time to get used to it. Generally speaking I'm not entirely fond of the pastels, font choices and flat interface elements. It takes many cues from Metro it seems, which is unfortunate for me as I can't stand Metro.

Anyway, as long as the articles come in a nice, date-ordered list rather than going full-on The Verge (which vomits content all over the place) I doubt I'll have significant issues with any graphical design.

For me, none of those are any better. But thanks to the Stylish plugin for Firefox, I could override your new redesign with my own. All except for a few elements you've marked as "!important" in your css. You really shouldn't do that, by the way. Here's how mine looks. It isn't perfect, but it's a lot better on my eyes.